Though the present invention is applicable to the mooring or anchoring of any floating body in deep water and particularly to mooring dredges, it will be described primarily in connection with bucket wheel dredges which, as a result of the invention have been made available for dredging, and particularly mining, in waters of excessive depth i.e. between 100 and 200 feet or more.
Bucket wheel dredges for mining minerals, such as coal, and continuously delivering the same to a shore-side point of use, such as a generating plant, are well known. In certain areas of the world, deposits of coal are located on the bottoms of lakes having depths of around 200 feet or more and it has been proposed to erect generating plants on the shore of such lakes and deliver continuously to the plants coal dredged from the bottom of the lakes. Clam shell dredges are relatively slow and inefficient for supplying coal at the required rate and cutter suction dredges are not efficient for mining coal. On the other hand bucket wheel dredges are ideal for such use but, prior to the present invention could not be used efficiently in deep water because the usual means for mooring dredges in such depth was by the use of anchors and flexible cables which do not provide sufficiently accurate or stable positioning of a dredge barge to permit the use of bucket wheels, which exert greater forces on the dredge than do conventional cutters. As a practical matter, therefore, spuds are essential for use with bucket wheel dredges but spuds could not be used in deep water because of the excessive mass required to resist bending forces, the excessive mass of the machinery required to handle such spuds, and the excessive heights the spuds would extend above the water surface when fully elevated to their transport position.
The broad object of the present invention is to provide improved means enabling spud mooring of a floating body in water of exceptional depth.
More particularly it is an object of the invention to provide the foregoing improved spud mooring means in combination with a dredge and particularly, a bucket wheel dredge.
Other objects and their attendant advantages will become apparent as the following detailed description is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.